13.1 Overview of the Oracle Business Intelligence Domain

Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management Sales and Marketing offerings use following Oracle Business Intelligence components from the Oracle Business Intelligence domain:

Oracle Business Intelligence Analytics

Essbase

Oracle Real-Time Decisions

Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher

Key components of Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management, such as Territory (which is the core component of Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management), rely on Oracle Business Intelligence Analytics as the source data for planning and optimization.

Oracle Business Intelligence Analytics is the mandatory underlying component for Territory Management, Sales Predictor Engine, and Opportunity Landscape, as they are analytic-centric applications.

13.4.3 Updating the FusionVirtualHost_bi.conf Configuration File

To enable Oracle HTTP Server to route to bi_cluster, which contains the bi_servern Managed Servers, you must set the WebLogicCluster parameter to the list of nodes in the cluster:

On WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2, update the WebLogicCluster parameter in the ORACLE_BASE/config/CommonDomain_webtiern/config/OHS/ohs1/moduleconf/FusionVirtualHost_bi.conf file to contain a cluster list of Virtual host:port entries.

The servers specified in the WebLogicCluster parameters are only important at startup time for the plug-in. The list must provide at least one running cluster member for the plug-in to discover other members in the cluster. The listed cluster member must be running when Oracle HTTP Server is started. Oracle WebLogic Server and the plug-in work together to update the server list automatically with new, failed, and recovered cluster members.

Sample scenarios include:

Example 1: If you have a two-node cluster and then add a third member, you do not need to update the configuration to add the third member. The third member will be discovered dynamically at run time.

Example 2: You have a three-node cluster, but only two nodes are listed in the configuration. However, if both listed nodes are down when you start Oracle HTTP Server, then the plug-in would fail to route to the cluster. You must ensure that at least one of the listed nodes is running when you start Oracle HTTP Server.

If you list all the members of the cluster, then you guarantee you can route to the cluster, assuming at least one member is running when Oracle HTTP Server is started. For more information on configuring the WebLogic Server plug-in, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Using Web Server Plug-Ins with Oracle WebLogic Server.

13.5 Scaling Out Oracle Business Intelligence Components

This section describes how to scale out the Oracle Business Intelligence system using the Configuration Assistant. It is assumed that an Oracle Business Intelligence ORACLE_BASE (binaries) has already been installed and is available from CRMHOST1 and CRMHOST2, and that a domain with an Administration Server has been created. This is the domain that will be extended in this chapter to support Oracle Business Intelligence components.

13.5.4 Configuring Secondary Instances of Singleton System Components

The Oracle BI Cluster Controllers and Oracle BI Scheduler are singleton components that operate in active/passive mode. Configure a secondary instance of these components so that they are distributed for high availability.

In Fusion Middleware Control:

Log in to Fusion Middleware Control (http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777/em).

Expand the Business Intelligence node in the Farm_BIDomain window.

Click coreapplication.

Click Capacity Management, then click Availability.

Click Lock and Edit Configuration to activate the Primary/Secondary Configuration section of the Availability tab.

13.5.5.3 Disabling Host Name Verification for the bi_server2 Managed Server

This step is required if you have not set up the appropriate certificates to authenticate the different nodes with the Administration Server (see Chapter 6, "Configuring Node Manager"). If you have not configured the server certificates, you will receive errors when managing the different WebLogic servers. To avoid these errors, disable host name verification while setting up and validating the topology, and enable it again once the enterprise deployment topology configuration is complete as described in Chapter 6, "Configuring Node Manager."

13.5.6.1 Additional Configuration Tasks for Oracle BI Scheduler

If you use server-side scripts with Oracle BI Scheduler, it is recommended that you configure a shared directory for the scripts so that they can be shared by all Oracle BI Scheduler components in a cluster.

Perform these steps in Fusion Middleware Control to set up cluster-specific configuration properties for Oracle RTD. You only need to perform the steps on one of the nodes in your deployment. You do not need to set cluster-specific configuration properties for Oracle RTD for subsequent nodes.

Log in to Fusion Middleware Control (http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777/em).

Expand the Application Deployments node in the Farm_BIDomain window.

Click OracleRTD(11.1.1)(bi_cluster).

Click any node under it. For example, OracleRTD(11.1.1)(bi_server1).

In the right pane, click Application Deployment, and then select System MBean Browser.

In the System MBean Browser pane, expand Application Defined MBeans.

For any one of the servers under OracleRTD, navigate to the MBean and set the attribute, as shown in Table 13-1. Other servers automatically get updated with the value you set.

Table 13-1 Oracle RTD MBean Attributes and Values for Clustering

MBean

Attribute

Value

SDClusterPropertyManager -> Misc

DecisionServiceAddress

http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777

Click Apply.

13.5.6.2.2 Adding System Properties to the Server Start Tab

After scaling out Oracle RTD, use the Administration Console to add three system properties to the Server Start tab of each Managed Server.

Set the BatchManagerEnabled attribute back to true and click Apply. Performing this task causes the Batch Manager to stop and be restarted.

When it restarts, it will be running on either the same server as before, or on a different server.

After restarting Batch Manager, note that the corresponding MBean does not always immediately get refreshed on the server where Batch Manager comes back up, so this is not a concern. Instead, verify that Batch Manager is now operational by using the Batch Console tool:

Locate the zip file for the Oracle RTD client tools in the following location:

ORACLE_BASE/products/fusionapps/bi/clients/rtd/rtd_client_11.1.1.zip

Because most Oracle RTD client tools do not run on UNIX, unzip this file in a location on a Windows machine (referred to here as RTD_HOME). Then, locate the batch console jar file in:

RTD_HOME/client/Batch/batch-console.jar

Change to this directory and execute the jar, passing to it the URL and port of either the Managed Server, or of the cluster proxy:

java -jar batch-console.jar -url http://SERVER:PORT

When prompted, enter the user name and password of a user who is a member of the Administrator role, BI_Adminstrator role, or some other role authorized to administer Oracle RTD batch jobs.

If you are not sure how to locate the Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Office Server directory, check the LogDir parameter on the About Oracle BI EE Office Server page. The Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Office Server directory is the parent directory of the log directory.

On both CRMHOST1 and CRMHOST2, open bioffice.xml for editing and modify the BI Office properties shown in Table 13-2.

Important: If SSO is enabled, then enter the URL for the protected analytics servlet that you deployed when configuring BI Office to integrate with the SSO-enabled Oracle BI Server. The URL that is specified for this property is used for Web services requests between the BI Office Server and Presentation Services.

SawUseSSO

0 = No (Default)

1 = Yes

Set this property to 1 if the Oracle Business Intelligence implementation is enabled for SSO.

SawWebURLforSSO

http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777/analytics/saw.dll

When SSO is enabled, use this property to enter the public URL that allows external users to access Oracle Business Intelligence using SSO from the Oracle BI Add-in for Microsoft Office.

Restart the BI Office application:

Log in to the Administration Console (http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777/console).

Click Deployments in the Domain Structure window.

Select bioffice(11.1.1).

Click Stop.

After the application has stopped, click Start.

Validate that the SawBaseURL parameter has been updated on the About Oracle BI EE Office Server page.

13.5.6.4.2 Validating Oracle BI for Microsoft Office

To validate configuration for Oracle BI for Microsoft Office:

Log in to Oracle BI Presentation Services at:

http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777/analytics

In the lower left pane, under the Get Started heading, select Download BI Desktop Tools and then select Oracle BI for MS Office.

Each server has a transaction log that stores information about committed transactions that are coordinated by the server that may not have been completed. The WebLogic Server uses this transaction log for recovery from system crashes or network failures. To leverage the migration capability of the Transaction Recovery Service for the servers within a cluster, store the transaction log in a location accessible to a server and its backup servers.

Note:

Preferably, this location should be a dual-ported SCSI disk or on a Storage Area Network (SAN).

To set the location for the default persistence store:

Log in to the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console (http://biinternal.mycompany.com:7777/console).

In the Change Center, click Lock & Edit.

In the Domain Structure window, expand the Environment node and then click the Servers node. The Summary of Servers page is displayed.

Click the name of the server (represented as a hyperlink) in the column of the table. The Settings page for the selected server is displayed, and defaults to the Configuration tab.

Open the Services tab.

In the Default Store section of the page, enter the path to the folder where the default persistent stores will store its data files. For example:

To enable migration of the Transaction Recovery service, specify a location on a persistent storage solution that is available to other servers in the cluster. Both bi_server1 and bi_server2 must be able to access this directory.

13.5.8 Starting and Validating Oracle Business Intelligence on CRMHOST2

Verify that the server status is reported as "Running" in the Administration Console. If the server is shown as "Starting" or "Resuming," wait for the server status to change to "Started." If another status is reported (such as "Admin" or "Failed"), check the server output log files for errors.

13.5.8.2 Starting the Oracle Business Intelligence System Components

You can control Oracle Business Intelligence system components using opmnctl commands.

To start the Oracle Business Intelligence system components using the opmnctl command-line tool:

Go to the directory that contains the Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server command-line tool, located in /u02/local/oracle/config/BIInstance1 /bin.

Run the opmnctl command to start the Oracle Business Intelligence system components:

./opmnctl startall: Starts Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server and all Oracle Business Intelligence system components

Access the following URLs to verify that routing and failover is functioning properly:

http://WEBHOST1:10621/analytics

http://WEBHOST1:10621/xmlpserver

http://WEBHOST1:10621/ui

http://WEBHOST1:10621/hr

http://WEBHOST1:10621/calcmgr/index.htm

http://WEBHOST1:10621/aps/Test

http://WEBHOST1:10621/workspace

13.5.10 Configuring Node Manager for the Managed Servers

Oracle recommends using host name verification for the communication between Node Manager and the servers in the domain. This requires the use of certificates for the different addresses communicating with the Administration Server and other servers. See Chapter 6, "Configuring Node Manager" for further details. The procedures in that chapter must be performed twice using the information provided in Table 13-3.

Table 13-3 Details for Host Name Verification for Node Manager and Servers

Run

Host Name (Host)

Server Name (WLS_SERVER)

Run1:

CRMHOST1

bi_server1

Run2:

CRMHOST2

bi_server2

13.5.11 Configuring Server Migration for the Managed Servers

Server Migration is required for proper failover of the Oracle BI Publisher components in the event of failure in any of the CRMHOST1 and CRMHOST2 nodes. For more information, see Chapter 16, "Configuring Server Migration."

Create the Essbase System Component on CRMHOST2. Refer to the ORACLE_BASE/products/fusionapps/bi/bifoundation/admin/provisioning/readme.txt file for changes to the opmnctl createcomponent parameters for Essbase.

Make sure to update the arborPATH property prior to running the Essbase failover automation tool. Do the following from the /u02/local/oracle/config/BIInstance/config/foundation/11.1.2.0 directory on CRMHOST1:

Add a <topology> tag under the <notification-server> tag to the /u02/local/oracle/config/BIInstance/config/OPMN/opmn/opmn_EssHA.xml file, as shown in Example 13-7. (The lines that you must verify and add are shown in bold.)